


wake up in tokyo.

by moonjjh



Series: ? inspiration: markmin [4]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Light Angst, Love, M/M, No Dialogue, No Smut, Relationship Study, Romance, Secret Relationship, this got me in my feelings :'((
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 22:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonjjh/pseuds/moonjjh
Summary: from the beginning until now, their love is quiet.





	wake up in tokyo.

**Author's Note:**

> another fic for 2k19!! i wrote this after reading some sad poetry and go inspired by a poem that just made me think of markmin, so here it is!! there is "implied" sexual content but its not even mentioned at all its just like talk of hickeys, barely. 
> 
> hope you enjoy, i wrote this really quickly but i love it.

quiet.

 

it’s a presence they know well. it clings to them in the form of awkward silence as they walk distance to distance, between streets and winding roads after a date gone sour. sometimes it’s loud, barging into their space after a fight where one of them happens to say the wrong thing in the midst of the moment, red faced and voice bitter, and now it can’t be taken back, unspoken. it lingers in the air until quiet looks at the phrase as it floats and pokes it endlessly, like a toddler to a flurry of bubbles. occasionally, silence is there but it goes unnoticed, like a spy eavesdropping from its place behind a building's corner, watching and lingering but never jumping out. instead, it waits and then leaves, because the silence between the two of them gets so comfortable that they break it, so much so that their bellies fill with fluttering butterflies, pink and orange in their stomachs.

 

mark likes the quiet more then jaemin does, it’s preference, is all. mark lee doesn’t see the need for loud things all the time. most things in the world are generally soundless. like inanimate objects: clothes, the floor, hair, anything that didn’t make noise unless you interacted with it. and yes, mark will admit, he can be hyper at times, but loud noises aren’t his thing. he would prefer a soft melody, a balled, rather than rock or pop music. jaemin prefers jazz, and mark listens to that too if jaemin wants to play it as he cleans. not only is the music slight, but it moves in waves, soothing like the ocean brushing up against the shore, barely tapping human toes. other times it sounds sad, but the more sad music is the blues mark likes to listen to, as well as those grainy slow alternative songs that come every once a blue moon. they all, in turn, swim through the apartment walls like fish in the ocean, against the currents and the walls: they seep slowly into every living space and corridor until jaemin can practically smell them.

 

they keep their love in those songs, in the house. others outside don’t know, and if they do, they don’t speak on it. outside they keep their tingling hands to themselves, no matter how cold the weather is or how much comfort they may need at the time. mark takes the habit of stuffing his fists in his coat pockets, pulling at the fabric sewn into them while jaemin continually twists his fingertips, rubs his hands together to create some kind of warmth that will spare his hands for whatever time they are out. it never works, and any signs of increasing warmth is faded away the moment the cold breeze catches up to them again. they definitely don’t kiss. jaemin doesn’t even risk it, as much as he wants to, doesn’t step closer at moments he thinks no one is looking for a quick peck on chapped lips. mark wants him to, at least once so he can be sure that jaemin feels as desperate as he does, but he also doesn’t. everyone is watching them all the time, one quick kiss in a long dark corridor won’t spare them.

 

uncoincidentally, their love is quiet. to their friends, mark and jaemin are solely this: friends. roommates, if technical. acquaintances to people on campus who don’t know them well enough to talk more than the occasional greeting in the hall when passing by. mark, when asked, corrects no one. he lets them believe what they want, that he and jaemin are just really good friends, helping each other out financially by living together. jaemin lets others believe rumors, too. rumors that mark has some sexy, foreign girlfriend because he always comes to class moments before the bell rings, heavy breathed and slick lipped. that jaemin is some doll like playboy that lets himself be swept away in clubs, because the hickeys and marks all over his neck and chest always look fresh and organized in a way that somehow says ‘mine’. they both let strangers think that in some way they might actually hate each other, because the first years only see them in the morning when jaemin is tight lipped and irritated from waking up and mark is more mum then he is usually.

 

and though jaemin lets the rumors fester in whatever waters they have been dipped into, they still hurt. too many times have people come up to him, too many _girls_ coming up to him to ask if their ‘ _mark oppa’_ has actually got a girl that he loves. other girls who don’t know the rumors ask them if mark will say yes to their offers to date, while boys come up to ask if it's weird being a third wheel in your own home. every time, jaemin puts on a smile that hurts his face, stretches his cheeks and surely gives him premature wrinkles, and says the same line: _well, what do_ you _think?_  because it seems like no one can think for themselves, these days.

 

their friends dive into the rumors too, eat them up like hors devours  at a party dedicated to them. jaemin has had almost all of them, with the exception of jisung and chenle, come up to him about his “habits”. it’s the same thing each time, ‘ _don’t sleep around, it’ll ruin you’,_ and jaemin can see clearly the deep lines of disappointment etched into their faces when they see him next, fresh kiss marks down the line of his neck and a red bite deep into his collarbone. jaemin says nothing when they ask, when they demand to know who it was, but he looks away when they ask him if mark knows. mark _does_ know, he’s the one that leaves each and every one of them, but that isn’t what their asking. silently, they ask if mark is okay knowing how dirty jaemin is. jaemin turns away because he knows they think of him as so.

 

because of it, group hangouts are especially hard. usually they all gather at ten’s apartment, it’s the biggest because he’s been rich his whole life and is only getting richer, a large estate with two bathrooms and four bedrooms and neighbours that don’t smoke through the vents on your floor. he’s got an actual living room, not a living room/kitchen, so they all pile up there, bunching up between the two couches and the love seat and the carpeted floor. if it’s a tuesday they play board games, because the winner gets a gift card for a free mcflurry at mcdonalds and the loser has to give everyone a mere dollar. on wednesday they play party games because they're still kids,  even in college and some graduated, and doyoung and taeyong usually end up locked in a closet for seven minutes so they can solve out their fight. on thursdays they usually eat out, but if not they reserve that for saturday’s and sundays. they don’t really meet on monday’s together, everyone too busy with the start of the week, but on friday’s everyone settles down in the evening until night to watch movies on ten’s big screen tv.

 

it hasn’t always been like this, but jaemin is starting to get used to the awkwardness. the hyungs still glare at mark at times, look at him too long and too hard to be considered spacing out, and jaemin wants to tell them that even if it _were_ true that mark had some big, busty girlfriend living half a mile away, he would tell them when’s he’s ready, not when they glare-pressured him to do so. other than that, everything with mark is fine, and he can enjoy whatever movie they watch with just the slight feeling of johnny’s eyes on the back of his head.

 

for jaemin, it is not nearly that easy. he doesn’t want to label himself as a slut, he knows that no one really is, and that he for sure is not close to the definition of the word, but it’s what they believe. and he would like to explain, show them that he doesn’t sleep around, that the marks are there from someone he _loves,_ but that gives everything away. jaemin would rather be considered a whore for the rest of his time in college until he graduates then be outcasted forever because of who he kissed to sleep at night. it isn’t a hard choice to make, but it isn’t the easiest. and mark is always there after class in their small apartment and his arms opened wide, ready to take jaemin in his arms and make love to him all over again. and jaemin will always fall into him over and over, because they breathe each other and the red marks on jaemin’s body in the morning makes him feel like he’s littered in diamonds, gold. a canvas being painted on into a picture using million dollar paint.

 

mark’s goal is to make jaemin feel beautiful. at times like these it's hard, because the rest of the world is too harsh and make jaemin feel used, though he isn’t. he isn’t a meaningless piece of paper printed over and over, he’s a homemade book you spent all your time looking into, your most valuable possession, your pride and joy that you want to show off but keep so close. in the early mornings, jaemin doesn’t know how he makes mark feel. when he gets up to turn of his alarm and winces quietly at the cold floor the minute his feet come into contact, his soft sniffles from his runny nose because he has morning allergies but refuses to take medicine because in an hour they go away, the soft padding of his feet and his warm humming as he makes breakfast because they are both too tired and too broke to do anything but make themselves breakfast with whatever they have. all of it, mark loves.

 

jaemin is more than a doll. he’s a person, so intricate and amazing and strong but so very delicate, like chinese glass blown beautifully and then painted over with demanding tribal print. he glows with gazes, shining radiant with others’ eyes on him because he knows that mark is looking at him also. mark who supports him with nothing but his whole entire being and the universe put together, because his love for na jaemin cannot convey anything that the human race has put into words. if mark wishes to voice it, in the dark of their room at midnight with jaemin is his arms, he’d stutter for too long and then say simply that jaemin was the sun: mark needed him for his warmth, his comfort, his love, and if he ever left, mark would die. it’s not enough of an explanation, because mark knows if jaemin ever leaves, wishes to leave, mark would let him and will wait until jaemin is far enough away to implode into himself, because he is nothing but a shell named mark lee, with a heart that beats only na jaemin’s name.

 

in contrast, jaemin wants to make mark feel useful. the boy is capable

of anything, jaemin will swear to the sun and the moon and the stars, and he will work for anything that he dares to want. mark lee isn’t _lazy,_ he’s up and running before jaemin has the time to blink the sleep out of his eyes in the morning, leaving to his first class with a gentle kiss to jaemin’s temple before he’s gone to battle the world. and this time, the world _is_ against him. mark had gone through what no one else should, but he carries it with grace and poise, so much so that jaemin often feels that mark may be living god. his shoulders never fall, his gaze never wanders, it sets and he watches with tall being because mark lee is nothing if not strong.

 

mark is the very love of his life. what he wakes up in the morning to, his motivation to eat during the day, to move, his sole reason for surviving even as his body feels like it's shutting down, slowing to a stop. mark makes him efficient, like a new battery in a broken flashlight, the plug of a charger into a phone, a tinkling laugh in the middle of a broken night. if someone were to ask him, _who is mark lee?_ jaemin would have to think for the right words, but words do not exist when it comes to mark. all jaemin can think about it how much he loves him, how his body must have been made to fit into mark’s own, how mark will smile and jaemin will think that both he and mark will be infinite in everything, and that as the world dies out, mark will be with him for the rest of time. to grow old with him, to create a family with him, to grow so exponentially large together that the world is at the mercy of their love and their love only, because mark may be the strongest and most heartfelt person to have ever lived.

 

it’s fine that their love is quiet. others cannot hear them, but they try, and they come out with useless things they think they heard, that they hope might have been whispered into the air. but jaemin and mark know better. outside, they together do not exist, and as so, they are only mere halves of who they really are. inside, jaemin will let mark cherish him, hold him tightly in the cold dark of their small apartment until the moon rises and falls to give way to the sun of the morning, will let him have his way with him in any form because mark is mark and he is all jaemin will ever need and want. and mark will let jaemin breathe into him, settle into his bones and be his home because it’s all he’s ever wanted, to be a structure of support to the thing that means most to him, and will let jaemin kiss his lips until forever is but a thing that has come and gone and they are the only ones left to ever live.

 

maybe what they have is wrong. on the outside, it is considered so, but in the moment, that is fine. they will deal with the hardships of life as the are thrown, will let them hurt and bruise, but they will come back at the end of each day to each other's arms, will kiss over each others wounds, healing each other for the next day to come.

 

wounds are temporary, as is sound, but love can last forever, and quiet is inevitable.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twt i talk about markmin: @ekesang
> 
> tumblr: pridejk, 1markmin
> 
> comments and kudos are greatly appreciated always!! please comment and tell me what you think/how i can improve my writing!!


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